Hi folks,

A bit off topic, but there seems to be a bit of debate out there about what to do with a new laptop or netbook. For techies, the impulse is to unbox and get hands-on as quickly as possible. This impulse comes from deep within what Sigmund Freud identified as the Id, anatomically associated with the brain stem and the thalamus, the brain’s primitive center of sex and aggression.

Here is an example of the appropriate emotions that technology nerds experience when they hear the word “unboxing”.

But of course running counter to this is the impulse that flows from the SuperEgo–of course we all know that using a new laptop before the battery is fully charged will result in the battery exploding and your life span being shortened. Well, no actually the *battery’s* life span is supposedly shortened by using it this way and therefore many people advise an overnight charge for a new battery. Technical people naturally tend to believe somewhat superstitiously in “optimal” ways of doing things, and if optimal means waiting to use your shiny new laptop, then by all means lets wait.

So to rationalize these two very conflicting feelings I propose a best practice for unboxing laptops and netbooks. the best thing to do is to run the laptop on power as soon as you unbox it but to pull the battery out.

That way you get instant gratification and you can immediately start removing all of the crapware that the vendor put on it, but not ruin your battery and your future chances for reproductive success. Ok, maybe just the battery.

Later on, say at night, you can pop the battery in and give it that full nights charge that it so richly deserves.

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